Welcome to my Science Blog! How great that you found your way to this page! It means we have at least two things in common: we are both curious, and we are interested in science! Nice!

So, what is this page about? My vision is to make everyday science more accessible to non-scientists, scientists and everyone who always wondered what their nerd-friends (I am one of them!) were really working on behind their lab doors.

To be more precise, I have a passion for the smallest living creatures on our planet – microbes. So, that’s what I’m going to write about! How do they make our life easier (or more difficult!)? How do they contribute to the functioning of complex ecosystems, where do they live and how?  You can trust me one this one: there are some pretty cool examples of how the smallest of them all can make a real difference – and determine the success of much bigger folks.

How did this idea come to life? A few years back, in an attempt to explain to my poor parents why I knock out genes in brewing yeast and then poison them to see how much they  suffer, I had one day decided to make a video to show them. I actually succeeded in making it more real to them (as a bonus they saw the lab I worked in at the time), and it also convinced me that I would love to see more people understand what science can achieve, what we can actually find out and how that is relevant for everyone!

What else? Another reason for me to do this blog is my own frustration when I try to read on new hot topics: Very often, I’m struggling to make it through the first page of a paper because we tend to write overly complicated, stuff our writing with awkward abbreviations and words we barely know ourselves (even if we are actually from the field!). I think that a lot of the papers that are out there have something nice to say and I would like to help translating the message into words that everyone can understand.

Finally, as a consequence of my sometimes too high ambitions I am aiming at providing these kind of science facts on fungi, bacteria and their buddies both in English and German to reach even more of you!

I heartily hope that you will enjoy reading my posts and be assured that I welcome comments and discussions or suggestions for topics!

I am a passionate microbiologist driven by curiosity and fascination for the wonders of the mostly invisible world of tiny creatures.

Please join me in my explorations into this world in a nutshell and discover it’s amazing facettes!